The Reluctant Assassin - Eoin Colfer

Published by Puffin Books/Penguin Group: London, England: 2013.
Book 1 in the 'WARP Series.' Followed by 'The Hangman's Revolution.'

This at times surprisingly violent young-adult novel begins in Victorian London, where we meet Riley, a stereotypical Victorian street urchin. He has been trained by Albert Garrick, a stage magician and true psychopath, who has turned to the life of an assassin following the on-stage death of his lovely assistant. When we first meet Riley, Garrick is supporting him to attempt his first assassination, something that Riley is understandably a bit reluctant to do (thus the title). However, as the attempt goes sideways, Riley is sucked into a time portal, and emerges in the present day.

Here he meets Chevron 'Chevie' Savano, a 17-year old FBI agent, hired under a now defunct youth programme. Chevie, who was somewhat responsible for the programme being shut down, is impulsive and a bit over-confident, and becomes our second protagonist. She begins introducing Riley to our day, and later, Riley introduces her to the Victorian era, meaning that both characters get the chance to be 'the expert.'

The aforementioned violence comes in the form of Garrick, who begins a time-jumping killing spree as he seeks to understand and control to power of the time portals. A Victorian-era assassin would be an interesting enough antagonist, but Colfer allows Garrick to learn an incredible amount of modern knowledge through an unexpected and slightly gory method. This makes Garrick even more dangerous, particularly when he seeks to use his newfound knowledge to take over the Victorian world.

There are a number of twists and quirky characters (some of whom survive) and the book both resolves well while also leaving a large space available for a sequel.

Colfer is most well-known for the Artemis Fowl series, something I have never read. I remember that series being somewhat controversial for having a super villain child as the star. Seeing the violence in this one, I imagine that could also lead to this series being mildly controversial - though not as much as another YA series I recently encountered for the first time.

Completed 5 May 2024.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Murder of Mr Wickham - Claudia Gray

Image
Published by Vintage Books/Penguin Random House LLC: New York, 2022. 'A Mr Darcy and Miss Tilney Mystery' Book 1. Followed by ' The Late Mrs Willoughby. ' The second book I've read in what could be a developing sub-genre: Jane Austen mysteries! Death Comes to Pemberley was the first, and although that was written using intentionally Austen-style choice of words, The Murder of Mr Wickham is far more successful in creating both the Austen feel and the proper murder-mystery vibe . It is also a little larger in scope than Pemberley was; this time, the characters in the story are not just pulled from Pride and Prejudice , but seemingly from every Austen novel! I say seemingly as I have still not read all of her works, but characters from  Sense and Sensibility   turn up, as do characters from Emma , and the rest seem to be referring to other literature as well. The author has even created her own 'Austen timeline' to make sense of her plot, telling us that the D
Read more

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Image
Published by Allen & Unwin: Crows Nest, NSW, Australia, 2008. Book snobs, block your ears. *whispers* I think the movie was better. Okay, book snobs, you can unblock your ears now. *waves to get the attention of book snobs* To be honest, a huge reason why I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society at this moment in time was that I thought it would be funny to have two books with ridiculously long titles appear back-to-back in my list. For anyone who thought that there were super-deep reasons why I picked the books that I did, I hope this helps you see the error of your ways. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (which I am refusing to shorten for the rest of this review) still tells the same story as that in the movie adaptation (also called  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society ), but does so in a less gripping (though still interesting) manner. This is for a few reasons: firstly,  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society book is e
Read more

Various Picture Books

Image
As I said in my review of Peter Rabbit's Storytime Collection , I am wanting to find a way to acknowledge the books I read to Ezekiel without adding individual picture books to my reading list - I feel that would dilute it a bit much. So in this post, I've decided to look at a group of picture books all together. I've picked five picture books that I like (with a notable and noteworthy exception), and also asked Elise for five picture books she is  enjoying reading to Ezekiel. It's interesting (and helpful for this list) that our lists haven't overlapped at all this time around. So, here are ten picture books (plus one bonus 'book') that Ezekiel has been exposed to in the first 7ish months of his life: Karl's List Bunnies on the Bus - Philip Ardagh and (illustrator) Ben Mantle. Published by Walker Books Ltd: London, 2020 (2019). This is one of my favourites among our current picture books. A group of bunnies hijack a bus and hurtle through the town on th
Read more